A deal with South Africa’s Naspers, completed in March this year, merged Slando.ru and OLX.ru into the Avito brand, while Naspers also invested a further $50 million in return for an 18.6% stake in the newly created group.

According to Gemius Audience Slando.ru is used on a monthly basis by 22.89% of Russian internet users, making it more popular than all of Russia’s online news sites.

Avito.ru itself, according to the TNS group, receives 30 million unique visitors per month, which translates to over 40% of Russian web users. According to the Financial Times, the merged group could become the fifth most popular Russian website, with more than 100 million page views per day. It is also expected to have a 25% share of the Russian classified market in terms of traffic, and a 15% share in terms of revenue.

The site is not only an important market for personal consumer goods. It is also a major player in spheres such as real estate and cars. In March 2013, the site had 140,000 people per day listing items on the site, 40,000 of whom had never listed before. The site was also being used for one in five used car sales in Russia. At present, over 12 million items are listed on the site.

Despite these impressive statistics, Avito is yet to translate its market dominance into financial profit. However, it generated $30 million in sales last year, and sees much future income coming from small Russian business owners, 4,000 of whom currently pay for services on the site.